Tehran, Iran, Dec.9
Trend:
Huge number of cars are stuck in Iran’s customs, Chief of Iranian Automobile Importers Association Mahdi Dadfar told Trend.
"Car imports to Iran will be completely eliminated. The project to remove importers from auto industry has been started long time ago, first by removing brands and then by limiting orders and now by import ban,” Dadfar said.
He pointed out that the government plans to support domestic production.
However, the import ban was not successful and despite the limitation on imports, the quality of domestic cars did not change and the US sanctions have created problems for production", Dadfar added.
"Total of 18,000 vehicles are stuck up at the customs, but the government has not made any decision so far,” he said.
Auto imports requires high amount of foreign currency that caused opposition toward importers, but considering the exclusive auto market and low quality of the domestic products, imports can create competitive market and improve the quality of domestic products,” noted Dadfar.
Following US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May, the Iranian government started taking measures to deal with the looming sanctions, one of which was prohibiting car imports in anticipation of the dwindling currency reserves and earmarking foreign currency for basic non-luxury goods.